What Price Quality?

With market trends favouring a wider choice of security products, in-house product development by security specialists has given way to a greater need for service support, which many companies are now finding difficult to maintain. So, asks David Trimmer Managing Director of SDC, is the security industry in danger of becoming a victim of its own success?

Since achieving NSI accreditation in 1985, SDC has extended its product range to embrace the latest technologies in CCTV, access control and fire detection systems. During this time the company’s customer base has broadened to include health care, education, government, industrial, commercial and retail installations. It’s not an unusual profile for a successful security company but, says David Trimmer, market pressures at this level can prove too much for some companies.

“Since the early 1990s the dominant electronic security installation and service companies have adopted a more conservative approach toward their own product development programmes,” says David, whose reasoning stems from the industry’s experience with intruder alarm systems. “The operational benefits of in-house product development and manufacture have been sacrificed in favour of purchasing new products from specialised manufacturers and distributors, a policy that has since been extended to include CCTV, access control and other security products.”

The trend may well have removed the costs and risks associated with new product development but it has created new demands for even higher levels of service. Against a competitive background of falling prices and reduced margins, many companies are now struggling to achieve the requirements brought about by this differential in emphasis.

“When my company obtained NACOSS (originally NSCIA and now NSI) accreditation it achieved a standard of differentiation that helped set it aside from non compliant competitors,” added David. “Our approach has been to re-position our business to accommodate the radical changes demanded by the market, but to do so in such a way as to maintain and develop further our differential image.”

Absolute commitment to quality is the key to making this strategy work, from standards imposed on suppliers through to operational standards expected of employees. The SDC commitment to its quality programme has become an integral part of the overall company philosophy and sets standards by which performance can be measured and confirmed through external recognition.

“We survey our customers to ensure the work we do is right,” says David. “We even survey end users where we fail to win a tender in order to pinpoint exactly where we went wrong. There’s no room for complacency in today’s marketplace. The industry is more sophisticated; the clients more knowledgeable and a ‘badge’ of quality is no longer enough. Quality products and quality installation have to go hand in hand with competitive pricing.”

Given the circumstances a company might be excused for seeking ways to reduce their operating and production costs. But to adopt such a policy without regard for the potential consequences is short sighted and could well lead to unexpected engineering costs when installed systems eventually break down.

‘What Price Quality? What we can say is that price is not, and never should be, the criteria to measure quality. Customer satisfaction, customer retention and referrals must be the currency.